Gypsy taveler
by Kelly Riker
Summary: a single toast in a shuttle between two friends, brings a whirlwind of black hair and doe like eyes to Enterprise. Only problem is, Briana Sheppard wanted nothing to do with the strict tactical officer. Some said Romeo and Juliet stood a better chance but once these two realize that they were made for each other, not even the galaxy would stand a chance. R&R please!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N the beginning was in Shuttle-pod one, if anyone was wondering. the last part of this chapter comes straight form the episode, just to clarify things. Now onto the disclaimers and such. Hope you enjoy it. Because the prologue was so short I combined that with chapter one.**

**Disclaimer: I own only Lt. Major Briana Shepard, the rest belong to their respective creators.**

Reed and Tucker(Trip) were under blankets passing a half empty bottle of Kentucky bourbon between themselves.

"With all the girls you've dated, didn't you ever say 'That's the one', Malcolm?" Trip asked, huddling deeper into the woolen blanket.

Malcolm thought for a while, after a minute saying. "Nope, can't say that I've had Lt."

Trip held the bottle of bourbon up, "Here's to the girl that'll knock you flat on your face and you'll fall in love with her."

After proposing that unique toast of his, Trip passed the bottle to Reed after taking a swig.

"Does that sound modulated enough for you?"

Trip looked up from his blanket. "Modulated?"

Reed gestured with the bottle towards the cockpit. "The radio! Or is it just the galaxy giggling at us?"

A drunk, freezing Trip answered Malcolm's question, his voice muffled by his blanket. " It can giggle all it wants. It's not getting any of our bourbon."

**Chapter1**

Several years went by, and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed forgot all about that toast in the shuttle-pod. No one knew about it except commander Tucker and himself, and probably no one ever would.

At the moment, Lieutenant Reed, Captain Archer, Ensign Hoshi Sato, Commanders Tucker and T'pol, and several security officers were on an away mission.

So far, nothing harmful or considered a threat showed up, but that never made the head security chief lower his guard.

Before they went around a corner, Captain Archer halted the group. Something told Reed, He'd better go first and not his captain.

xwx

Briana Stepped into the gate leading towards her home. Unlike the rest of her team, she didn't spend all her time on Atlantis. It wasn't really home, just a deserted planet no one knew about anymore. It helped being able to read the gate addresses like a second language.

The gate instinctively closed after all of Major Briana Shepard stepped through.

Instead of the usual abandoned fields, Briana stepped into a bustling market place. She bumped into a orange looking fella, just then realizing none of the people were human and no one understood any English.

After knocking down several Aliens' merchandise, Briana was more then just a little annoyed. She was covered in several alien beverages. After several people, who she couldn't understand, were done with cussing her out(persumably), Briana had it up to here with them.

Then two tall aliens pushed past several merchants. Briana barely had enough time to jump out of the way of flying stuff, But one of them spotted her. Briana didn't know what the warrior like men wanted with her. Her hand started edging towards her Bowie knife at her waist, still watching the two Klingons. The taller of the two saw her moving towards the knife.

He nudged his companion, saying "The female thinks she is a warrior, brother.", in Klingon. Both of them laughed deep belly laughs.

Briana had learned Klingon quite well, from having to decode everything her cousin John, said when he had visited her family. She got many jokes about the way she lived, and about her military career, so it came to no surprise that she was the object of their laughing.

Briana had just about had it with everyone. She moved faster then a snake, drawing and throwing her knife at the one who told the joke. Her aim was was perfect like always, she was champion of darts tourney three years running, of course. The Klingon fell with her knife in his heart, a look of utter surprise on his face.

"Next time, watch your tongue you dis-honorable pig!" She spat out at the dead Klingon, while pulling her blade out.

The other Klingon stopped laughing when his companion fell. He looked the female up and down, and saw a warrior in her. She cleaned her knife, wich was not not three bladed like his was a mess, yet her black hair was kept like his, long and lose.

She wasn't very tall, only 5'8, but she stood proud like a Warrior. Kurak would hvve guess that she had some Klingon in her, if Humans had been in space for longer then they had. The man who laid in his own blood was one of the most skilled warriors in the empire, yet a a small human female with hair of black had killed him..

When Briana turned to the joker's companion, she stared at him. The man was tall, around 6'10. He wore a knife at his waist, like her. "I hate being laughed at." She said clearly in perfect Klingon." What is you name?"

"Kurak, of the 7th house of Kozark. Yours?" He said proudly.

"Lt. Major Briana Shepard. Daughter of General Sean Shepard." She answered him, just as proudly. "Your friend was a a poor excuse of a warrior, Kurak."

xwx

After entering the main compound, Captain Archer divided the away team into groups. He and T'pol went towards the Klingon crusine section, hoping to find the brothers of the House of Kozark. Malcom and Trip headed towards the what appeared to be a struggle. Hoshi went with the two men. Once they got close to the struggle, a person was pushed out of the fight. She spun and hit Malcom, before trowing herself into the fray once again.

"Didn't those clothes look at least a little familiar, Commander?" Reed asked, rubbing his jaw. It didn't hurt so much as he was surprised.

"A little, I'd say she was miliarty, she wore the same pattern as Haye's men." Trip wirily answered. Pulling his phaser from the hostler, Trip switched the settings from kill to stun. He then proceded to stun several of the people brawling. Reed helped pick of the combatets, Stopping when he was face to face with an antqic gun.

"Who are you?" The woman behind the gun spoke for the first time. It was the same woman that had punched Malcom earlier.

Trip stepped in lowering the gun pointed at his friend. " We're just passing through looking for friends of ours." His texan accent rollered thick over his words, like syrup on pancakes.

The woman seemed surprised that he understood her and spoke English. "You speak my language?" She asked incredible. "You talk English."

Hoshie interjectted. "Yes, we're from Earth. We won't hurt you." She tried to calmly dissolve the tense between the four of them.

"What trickery is this? Earth is in a whole 'nother galaxy." She pointed her weapon straight at Hoshi. "You're Wraith, Other wise you wouldn't have weapons like these."

Hoshi stopped moving and slowly raised her hands when the unknown woman pointed her gun at her. Both Commanders imeetadly pointed their phasers at the woman.

"I am not Wraith, trust me. We have never encounted that species. Earth is in this galaxy, the milky way." The japaness translator tried to explain to the woman. But the unknown woman refused to believe Hoshi spoke the truth.

"NO! Earth is in the milky way, this is supposed to be the Pegasus galaxy. If you never met the Wraith, try to keep it that way." Malcom noticed that the woman started to get a little histerical and her weapon wavered. Seeing his chance, the securrity officer hit the woman in the chest with a bolt of blue eletricity. She instantly collapsed.

Hoshi lowered her hands as Reed radioed the captain. Trip started to disarm the woman. "She looks as if she could wage a war by herself." When she fell, a two pieces of rounded metal about the size of a couple inches and shaped in a rectanlge shape, came out form her shirt. Seeing the glint, Trip went to have closer look. "Malcom, what can you make of this?"

Malcom looked to what Commander Tucker was examing. "Looks like a pair of dog-tags. Military personell used them to exaim their desceased, when the bodies were hhard to tell who it was. They stopped using them a couple years before world war three."

The words on the dog-tags spelled out Major Briana Sheppard, and then her serial number.

"The Captain needs to see this." Malcom suddenly declared.

A single Klingon walked by, but stopped when he saw Briana on the floor. "I am Kurak of the House of Kozak. You have felled a mighty warrior of your race." He spoke heatedly, seeing the humans around the felled Sheppard.

"This mighty warrior is only unconious, Kurak. How do you know of her?" Trip asked saractically.

"She killed my brother in a fight earlier. I have been looking for you, Starfleet." Kurak answered, quite proudly I might say.

"Took down an armed Klingon. Hmm, Sheppard that name sounds flamilar." Malcom muttered to himself, rifling through the woman's tact vest, something he was surprised to see that wasn't in a meusem. Most of her gear, was mentioned in his history books when he was a kid. The P-90 that was clipped to the black tact vest, the hand-gun on her leg, even the knife and uniform, all of that he read about in history class when he was a kid.

The Captain and T'pol came running up, just then. "Commander, you said you found something unusal?" He asked curious, seeing the Klingon and unknown woman on the ground.

"Yeah, Kurak of the house of Kozark, met this lady earlier, she killed his brother. When we met her, she was in a middle of a brawl." Trip filled the two on recent events.

When Briana groggily pulled herself up from the ground, she found herself in a cell. Something that was 2feet by maybe 8feet. Not a lot of space and the front was covered in clear, plastic glass or sorts that had a chicken wire look to it. She stood just as a man entered, noting how the men guarding the cell stood taller, she realized that this was a man of higher rank. He had on a blue flight suit. His hair was short in a miliarty cut.

"Ah I see you are awake." His accent briefly reminded Briana of her time on Atlantis, when the british were included in the personell list.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Where am I?" Briana asked Reed warily. _No matter what they said_, Briana promised herself, _these people were Wraith, and Wraith are the enemy._

"You are aboard the Uss Enterprise. We brought you here when Kurak told us that you were human. I want to ask you some questions." Reed told her, pushing a button so that Briana could here him.

"Enterprise doesn't exist. it's a made up ship on the Sci Fi channel. Therefore, you are Wraith and I'm not telling you anything." Briana told Malcolm, arms crossed over her chest and her stance was saying loud and clear, _mess with me at your own risk. _She had one hell of a day and no smooth talking British man was going to mess with her mind.

"I am not Wraith, I bloody don't even know what that is. And Enterprise exists just as you do." Reed was starting to get very tired of being called something that he clearly wasn't part of that species.

"Prove it. And if you do I will try to explain how I came to be on that outpost." Briana said, sure that Reed couldn't prove her wrong.

Malcolm Reed did what any military man did, he called his superior down to the brig to talk with the prisoner.

When Captain Archer arrived, their guest, Kurak was accompany him. "So our guest is awake, finally." He said stopping next to the Lieutenant.

"You know that I can hear you right?" Briana asked the captain. "And the name is Briana."

"How did you get to the outpost in the first place?" Jonathon Archer started asking questions of the mystery infront of him.

"Couldn't tell you." Briana said, playing the blonde act, it worked in the past and she hoped it would work this time.

"Can't or won't?" Archer asked, pressing the button once more.

"Do I look like a scientist to you, Captain?" Briana hedged around the answer, clearly trying to hide something from the rest of the men. The Stargate Program was under the top most security imaginable, after all.

"You're weapons, where did they come from?" Archer decided to try another track to make Sheppard trip.

Briana started to laugh, after hearing that question. Looking at Archer's dead serious face, she stopped. "You're actually serious?! They come from Earth."

Reed had never in his life met a more confusing woman. She was beautiful, yet didn't know it. The things that she kept to when the captain started questioning her, wasn't the usual story, so Malcolm had come to grudgedly think that major Briana Sheppard was telling the truth.

Briana was quite for a long time, suddenly asked the two men on the other side of the brig. "What year is this?" Her tone of voice was urgent and the humans detected a slight hint of panic in her voice.

"2164, what does that have to do with anything?" Captain Archer asked the nervous lady.

"Nonononono..."Briana whispered, reeling from the answer. One stinking trip through a stargate sent her almost 158 years into her future. Sliding down the wall, Briana started to panic, knowing that everyone she talked with like three hours ago was long dead. She heard about the time-traveling trip that her cousin had, and she was starting to fully understand why John Sheppard hated that accident almost as much as he hated the Iratus Bug.

"Phlox get down here, I want you to run a test on our guest." Archer pressed a button near the door, paging the Denobulan doctor.

xwx

Doctor Plox hurried to the brig, which apoun entering found his patient staring at the wall, not bothering to notice the new arrival

"So what's the emergency?" The alien doctor asked generally concerned.

"Doctor Phlox, I would like you to meet Briana Sheppard. I want you to run scans on her and make sure that she's telling the truth doc." Archer gestured to the really still Briana. She never looked up when being introduced to the alien doctor.

"Very well, captain. I shall see what I can do." Phlox turned to the frozen woman in the brig cell. "Ms. Sheppard! If you would kindly come with me, dear woman, I can start doing my tests."

Briana startled only when Reed entered the cell to let her walk to the medical bay. "Nononono... This" She waved her arms around to indicate the whole ship. "This is all fake, I'm dreaming and any moment now, Doctor Carson will wake me up and tell me that we're under attack by Wraith hive ships!"

Noticing how close the security officer was to her, Briana moved as far away from Reed as possible. She didn't want anyone of them close to her, not knowing what might happen.

Finally fed up with the slightly scared woman, Reed looked towards his captain for answers. Archer nodded at Reed once, signally that he should use his phase-pistol and stun the Major, whom hadn't let anyone even get close to her, not even Reed.

Stunning the woman was the easy part, but that wasn't even stopping her with one stun.

Turning to Reed, who was the one holding the weapon, Briana smirked at him. "Those things don't work so good on me. I have developed a resistance to energy based weapons set on stun."

Smirking, Reed stunned her again, this time actually dropping the woman on the ground.

xwx

Doctor Phlox started to look deeper at the scans of his latest patient, noticing with an odd look that her blood chemistry came back a little unique, even for a human female.

xwx

Waking up, Briana didn't remember what happened, and finding herself in a totally un-familar place, well she was instantly alert. Jumping up from the white and in her opinion, highly uncomfortable bed, Briana saw the two doors. But in front of them, stood a pair of guards. Soldiers, who were wearing camo like Briana had on her jeans.

The two men, seeing that their guest was awake and not very happy, well they raised their weapons. Phlox walking in, motioned for one of the guards to get the captian and Reed down in the infirmary. Spinning around, Briana stopped dead in her tracks. Who was this man with bumps on his forehead and smiled an in-human grin at her?

Phlox gestured for Briana to stop screaming so he could talk, but she scrambled backwards to get away from the doctor as fast as possible.

That was how Malcolm Reed found the 5'4 woman, gesturing frantically to Phlox. Briana Sheppard had faced many aliens and dangerous situations, but this doctor took her by surprised with his large and terrify smile and the rows of bumps on his forehead first thing she woke up to seeing, okay it was second but who was counting?

Clapping his hand over Briana's mouth, Reed talked to her in a calming voice. "Phlox is our doctor, He treated you, he's Denobulan and won't hurt you."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

A/N: sorry about the two really short chapters lately folks! It's kinda hard for me to start a new story and have it flow really nicelyon the first couple of chapter. Anywho! Onward story cometh!

Disclaimers: I own the ideas behind this unique love story and Briana Sheppard, cousin to John Sheppard of Atlantis.

When Reed's hand landed on Briana's mouth, she was stunned for a couple of seconds, but after that she was one hellcat. Wiggling and turning, Briana tried to get the man to stop holding her. Nothing worked, in fact Malcolm just tighted his arm around her chest and wouldn't let Briana tug free of him.

Sagging in defeat, Briana gave into the man holding her. Reed noticing that Briana had quit struggling to get free, loosened his hold onto her.

Briana stomped on his foot and thrust her elbow backwards, letting her escape past the startled guards, while Reed frantically rubbed his somanche, where the spit-fire had knocked the air out of him. Exiting the Imfirmary, Briana took down the hallway at a dead run. Spotting a corner up ahead, She slid around it, hearing people's boots on the hard deck plating.

Briana skidded around into a corridor leading off of the main one, and saw someone up ahead. Windmilling her arms, Briana tried to stay up right and turn at the same time, while her long hair flew in every direction, creating a black cloud in the middle of the corridoor.

*)_(*

Malcolm Reed had to hand it his prisoner, not only had she escaped him and three guards, but she was a dang good runner to boot. The security detail had a hard time keeping up with the wild haired woman. Spottting her up a head, Malcolm put a burst of speed that he didn't know he had in him.

Looking into Briana's wide eyes, he could tell that the woman wasn't thinking, she was having a classic fight or flight instinct. So Reed, hosltered his weapon and held his arms out, slowly moving towards her and speaking softly.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Major. I just obeying orders. The Captain doesn't want you wondering around the ship, you could get lost." He said, gradually getting closer to the brown eyed beauty.

With each step Malcolm took, Briana took three backwards.

*)_(*

Briana couldn't understand this place which she found herself in. The people around her, were mostly humans, but that doctor was clearly alien. The brown haired security officer was cute, if she had time to actually dwell on that instead of trying to get back home.

She kept backing up, until a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her once more. Briana fought like a wild animal to get loose, not only were there people in front of her but there was someone behind her also that had gotten her.

"Whoa! I'm not gonna hurt ya, lady. Malcolm here just needs to make sure you're in a safe place." A thick Texan accent spoke behind her.

Briana sagged, it hitting her like a ton of bricks that wherever she was, there was no way home to Atlantis.

"Malcolm, you've got one hell of a wildcat on your hands." Trip's texan accent reminded Briana of her mother's family, whenever they visited them in Texas.

"Well considering that she got away from me twice in a day, Commander, I'll not reply to that comment." Reed's face was dead serious, but if you looked closer you could tell that he was joking.

"I really am in the future aren't I?" she whispered to the air, not noticing how the humans around her were looking at her funnily.

*)_(*

The she-cat on Enterprise was as tame as ever, Malcolm thought wirily, and it only took one Texas accent talking Engineer chief to do it. Ever since she punched him on his rear, Malcolm couldn't understand why he was so curious about her. It had been several days since Briana had excepted that she was years in the future. Captain Archer had been kind enough to offer Sheppard quarters aboard the Enterprise. In return she tried to help out in any way possible. But explosives had progressed years ahead than what she knew about.

Hurring to the armoury, Briana wanted to talk to Malcolm about letting her help out there. She was useless in Science, Engineering, and several other ocupations, but tatical was her strong point. And how much couldn that change in a hundred and fifty-eight years? Briana hoped that Malcolm would let her join the sercurity teams, after learning what she did on Atlantis.

Entering the door leading into the Amoury, Briana found Malcolm trying to upgrade the weapons targeting systems. "You do know that it's easier to target using the old fashion way right?" She asked, sliding down the ladder to reach the deck below her.

"If I can get this to be at a hundered and fifty percent targeting efficantce, Major, I won't use the old fashion way, you so claim." Malcolm told her stiffly, not bothering to look into Briana's brown gaze.

"I came to ask you if I could help around the armoury. If I don't do anything soon, I'm going to throw myself out of an airlock." She stood at attention, asking him to give her a job.

"Armoury is off limits to civilians." Maloclm automaticatilly replied to her question, not bothering to notice the glint in her eye, while she thought about it.

"I'm no more a civilan than you are, Commander. And I'll even prove it to you." Stuffing her hands in her pockets, She smiled an almost feral grin. "What say you to a combat excrise between the two of us, when the next training exercise rolls around."

"You're on." Malcolm argreed, finally turning to face her. Something about the way Briana was standing had him a little confused. It reminded him of the time that he was an agent for Section 31.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter four**

**A/N: The wild haired spit fire just can't stand this strict soldier can she? Well carry on, And you might get a glimse of her knocking Malcolm on his rear once more.**

Briana thought her chances of winning the fight were pretty good in her opinion, but something about the tatical officer bugged her. It reminded her of her time as a black Ops agent or a top-secret agent . If she were to guess, Briana would say that the man had a secret past before Enterprise.

Walking down the corridors, Briana soon found her footsteps had carried her to the Mess Hall. Looking around herself, she noticed that people were clustered together in groups and it went deathly quiet when they realized a stranger was among their midst.

***)_(***

Hoshi noticed the way their newest guest was acting. She was a lot like Malcolm Reed, she thought, grinning. Most of the time, she kept to herself but when she didn try to join the crew in something, Sato found that she was always on edge, waiting for something bad to happen. If she was ever asked, Hoshi Sato would say that Briana Sheppard and Malcolm Reed were similar but different in vast ways.

"Ma'am is this seat taken?" Briana's voice asked, her tone guarded.

Looking up, Sato gave Briana a kind and welcoming smile. "Not at all, as long as you don't mind me babbling in Klingon." She held up a PADD, "Captain wants me to get this decoded before we reached their planet in a few hours."

Smiling a genuine smile, Briana guestured if she could look at what she was reading. "May I, ma'am? I'm always trying to pick up new languages."

"You may, but how can you read this? Humans have never encountered the species before." Sato asked, unprepared for what Sheppard did next.

Scrolling through the padd, it reminded her of a Kindle in her day. Seeing part of the text still in Klingon, so she read it out loud, not very well. Pausing after she finished, Briana gave her compaion back her PADD. "You can thank my family for that one, ma'am. If my siblings and cousins didn't want me to know something they spoke different languages, but I eventually learned that language and they would have to switch it. They finally resorted to talking in fake languages, after a while I had picked that up too. Learning a new lanuage isn't hard for me, it' basically like a mathmatical equation." she explained before digging into her meal.

***)_(***

Malcolm had sworn that he would never do this again. He had started to dig further in the database about the name Sheppard but everything was scrubbed spotless. The whole file had been cleaned and almost everything had been classified about them. He had only been able to find that she was Air Force, delcared KIA, three days after being MIA.

Other than that, Malcolm had found very little. He knew that she came from a military background on her mother's side for several generations, but she had a long list of medals and awards with very little said about them. For one the many medals that she had received were without a report for why. Including but not only she had been awarded, an Air Medal, a Silver star, and a Purple heart. Which Malcolm found was really intreding was that she was rated to fly several different types of ships, after finding out that she was a test-pilot it started to make more sense.

The farther Malcolm looked into her record the more question he had about the woman. There were more holes in that file than swiss cheese, the more Reed knew that she was hiding something that could endanger all of Enterprise. So he went to measures that he swore that he'd never do again.

"Reed, I have a mission for you." Haris's voice broke through Malcolm's thoughts, startling the younger man. Grimancing, Reed turned his attention to Haris on his computer screen.

"What do you want Haris?" He asked putting away the interesting file of one Briana Sheppard. "I thought I told you that I don't work for you anymore."

"We've been through this before Malcolm. You never quit Section thirty-one." Haris tried to steer the convosation back to why he called. "We just got intel about a woman aboard Enterprise."

This got Reed's attention quicker than anything else, if the Enterprise or her crew were in jeporady it was his respoability to safe guard the ship.

"Tell me more." He told the agent, leaning closer to Haris.

"She was a one of the best Top-secret agents that were persumed dead while on a important mission centuries ago. We don't know anything more as to why she's aboard Enterprise, but her record was scrubbed clean. You couldn't find any dirt on the woman if you wanted to." Haris got down to bussiness and told him what he was to do.

"So why me?" Malcolm asked, intrigued immasely.

"You're the only agent that can protect her, Malcolm. If she can't get the intel she recovered to us, Earth doesn't stand a chance to surrive." Haris's tone of voice was something Malcolm had never heard from him.

"Why her?" Malcolm asked, trying to get a picture of what this mission might be like.

"She is related to a Colonel that was on the Front lines. They used her since she was the perfect person for the mission. No one would think that the chief of Security was working for them. Not even the commander of the base she was stationed at." Haris told Malcolm, everything he would need to deal with the threat at hand.

"So I'm to protect her until we can drop her off at Earth?" Reed asked, bitterness in his voice. He hated being the errand boy. It was a waste of his talents and time, when Enterprise needed him.

"Malcolm, you're the closest thing we have out there to protect her. If she doesn't get the intel to us, than we might as well write our most classified base a lost cause. This agent specializes in lost cuases, so give her a chance." Haris suddenly sounded older than thought possible to Reed's ears. "When I terminate this communicate, your moniter will automatically download the full file on your target. Protect her with your life, Commander."

"Haris, I bloody hate these secret assignments from you...!" Malcolm never got to finish his protests, but stopped when he saw who's file it was, One Briana Sheppard. The one person that Malcolm wasn't perpared to see her whole file.

The more he read, the more disbelief he had about her. No one could have exsited with those odds piled over their heads, yet she did and did it, persumably with flair. If Malcolm had a thousand years to figure her out, it still wouldn't be long enough for him to do it.

***)_(***

Trip crossed the decon's floor, knowing that the passager they picked up while on Tontaze IX, was more than likely bugging Malcolm this very minute. He didn't know what was with the two, but Malcolm would be blind if he didn't know that he liked the woman even a tiny bit. If she wasn't bugging the Lieutenant about letting her help out in the Armoury, than she was hanging out with the MACOs(Military Assault Command Operations). Sometimes Trip caught the woman in Engineering eager to learn any and everything. If he remembered correctly today was the day that Malcolm would test the woman's skill in combat, if Trip had heard from the grape vine correctly.

If Briana was like what the others claimed the woman to be, than it would be interesting to say the least. She had a familiarity about her that bespoke her ease of weapons and combat situations. Trip smiled knowing that a lot depended on a pile of Ifs and WHAT THENs.

*)_(*

As Malcolm faced Briana and noticed the ease of her movements. They were neither rushed nor sluggish, but done with ease of long pratice. Her long midnight colored hair was pulled back into a braid wrapped around her head like a crown. Both were in the ready stance but neither were making a move. Starting to cirlce each other, they took note of the way the other walked and things like that, never missing a thing.

After making a couple of moves, everything went dark for the whole ship. The crew had collasped and no one knew why.

*)_(*

There were people aboard the ship, ones that weren't part of the crew. Short with Ears that started in the middle of their foreheads these were Ferengi, thieves of the Galaxy. They did not call themselves theives but merchants. People who arrcured things in an unusual manner. Wandering the ship, two of them happened to find Briana and Malcolm in the training room, lying side by side on the blue mat.

"This one is female." One of them hiss talked to the other. "What are we to do with them?"

"Bring the crew, the females will make a good profit for the Orins, leave the males abaord."

**A/N: Just when things were getting easy for our two love birds. Well I know this will come across as pleading but who cares. Please, please leave a review. I honestly have never tried writing a romance before and I need the feedback to make it better. Otherwise this story, which has a lot of potiental, goes right down the drain of horrible wrongs.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_A/N: I really hope you guys will bear with me for the whole tale of this story. I'll aplogize before hand about some things wrong, this is the first romance story I have ever written, so I might need some help in the love department, folks. I have tried to keep Malcolm Reed as close to the real thing as possible, but when coupled with a leading lady like Briana, It's a little tough. I am not British, so I have no clue what some of the words he would use are. I'm american, like Briana, but it's proving to be an intersting thing to research for this._

Briana fought agaisnt the darkness creeping into her vision. But the harder she fought, the easier it was to give in and just sleep. So Briana, fell uncounious beside Malcolm,still clutching his forearms. Briana's hair had inadvertitlly fallen out of her braids and hair pins, so waves of black hair flowed around her and covering Malcolm.

***)_(***

Looking at the females around him, one of the large lobed aliens was finidng it hard to pick just two of the beautiful bodies. But walking into the room with two of the humans on the floor, he knew this one was one of the two, he was taking. She was beautiful in his eyes, a goddess among mortals. Her black hair was loose and flowed around her like a black cloud to highlight the sun. Her skin was flawless, yet looked like she went outside a lot. She wore a black tank-top that ended mid rif, with old, faded cargo pants with a camoflague pattern. Normally for them, their females were always kept unclothed, but this female in front of him, it would be better to cloth her and make it look mysterious to others, that way, she was all his.

The next female that only this one liked the most was a pointy eared, female, wearing a skin tight light blue catsuit. Her ears intriegued him the most, the other females had rounded ears not the pointy tipped ones she sported.

So he dragged the two females that he had chosen to the ship, knowing that the others would come as soon as they stopped downloading the database on a female that the Romulans wanted for a high price. A price so high in fact that every bounty hunter in the two Quadrents couldn't stop talking about it. The empor of Romulas had made it his specail duty to make sure that people knew the price on her head. The female they claimed to be looking for was human with black hair that was long and the softest and brownest eyes ever to be seen on the Planet. He also said she was a warrior to rival the best Klingons, but most thought that was just him joking to make it look like they had gotten their money's worth.

***)_(***

Malcom awoke when Trip put a hypo spray to his neck, looking around himself, Reed couldn't find the person he was to guard with his life.

"Glad you're awake finally, Malcolm. Lookis like those aliens that came last time are back for more of Enterprise's technology. I need your help." Trip told his friend, patting him on the back, after pulling the groggy Englishman to his feet.

"The ones that had Captain Archer telling them about a vault?" He asked, trying to find his sparring partner. "Where's Sheppard?"

" Saw one of the aliens dragging the sub-commander and our guest." Trip told him, tossing one of the last phase-pistols to Malcolm.

"How long ago was this?" Malcolm asked, catching and setting the phase-pistol. After making sure it was operational, he holstered it and started to head for the bridge. It was just the two of them aboard a ship to rescue their captured members.

"Ten, twently minutes. They used a hypospray to wake up Briana, before knocking her out again." Trip hurried to catch up with his friend.

"That doesn't bloody give us much time to catch them before they're out of range." Reed took his place at tatical, while Trip moved an unconscious Travis of the helm.

***)_(***

When Briana awoke, it was in a prison cell aboard an unknown ship. Guessing from how much the deckplating was vibrating, she found the ship was going warp three or four.

Looking towards her room-mate, Briana found that T'pol was just starting to wake up. The walls of the ship were a redish brown, while there was one wall open. Lunging towards it, Sheppard had to much momentum to stop her voloticy, and she ended up getting thrown to the floor from hitting a force-feild dead on.

"Why did you throw yourself towards the force-feild, Major?" T'pol asked, watching the young woman roll and stood up from the floor groaning.

"If you're going to tell me it was illogical, Sub-commander, I already know that." Briana pushed her hair away from her face, once more. "I'd say from the looks of things, that we are in a pickle."

"You are correct on that assumption, Briana Sheppard." T'pol sat cross legged on the ground, watching the younger woman start to figet.

Humans long ago had stopped surprising her, well after Trip had become her mate. But Briana Sheppard was odd even for a human, the commander noticed.

"Someone's coming." Briana tilted her head and listened harder, doing this all by keeping her hair over her ears.

"I noticed their footsteps several seconds before you did, Major." T'pol watched fasinated by Briana. She was illogical, yet logical. Briana had scampered towards the opposite wall, steading herself for a fight, T'pol noticed.

The aliens who entered were not the ones that captured the Enterprise, no these aliens could have been mistaken for Vulcans, except they all had a ridge shaped like a V above their eyebrows.

"Romulans." Briana breathed the word, backing farther away from them as possible. She had heard the stories from her grandfather. He claimed that Romulans were cousins of Vulcans, very distandly, he put emmisapse on distantly. Briana now knew why Vulcans didn't like the bond between their two people.

"I am Travon of the Romulan Star Empire. It would seem that we have saved you from a worse death by the Ferengi." The one wearing the more decoration on his uniform spoke. "Which one of you is Briana Sheppard?"

Briana closed her eyes and breathed deeply, calming herself. It wouldn't do if she was hysterical and gave some important bit of information away, Romulans after all could never be trusted. "Why are you looking for her, Travon?" She asked, coming closer to the Romulan and T'pol.

"She was sent to help us defeat an enemy calling themselves the Wraith. They have taken over much of the empire all ready." Travon, knew that this was the one that he was looking for, when he noticed the widening of her eyes at the mention of the name.

"Wraith, now that's a race that I'm well accainted with...Whatever were the Romulans thinking when they tried to make them slaves?!" Briana muttered to herself, knowing that it was pointless to hide what their captors already knew.

_*)_(*_

Trip could feel T'pol's worry. Something was wrong and Tucker didn't know how he could safeguard his mate. Looking at Malcolm, he grimly smiled. There was nobody he'd rather have watching his rear, than Malcolm Reed, Security officer of Enterprise.

The warbird that they ended up chasing, when the alien vessel that had captured the two crewmembers was destroyed, had stopped in a planetary system.

Why go to all that trouble of hiding their warp trail when they were heading towards a empty system. Four of the ten planets could hold life but none of them didn't. Their sun on the other hand was in the first stages of colllasping.

_A/N:Please leave a review, This is my first romance and I might need some pointers and things of the like, if you know what I mean. Anyway THANK YOU for reading this far in the Gypsy Traveler. I will get back to you in three weeks, maybe less._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_A/N: Hello Again Folks! Why are the Wraith still here? How come Briana was brought to the future? And IS she a Spy or not? All these questions and more will be answered in this chapter, I hope. _

When Travon left T'pol and Briana alone once more, Briana sat cross-legged on the ground, her chin propped up by her hands, humming.

"How do you know a Vulcan song?" T'pol questioned the silent Sheppard. T'pol recongized the song, it was similar to ones her mother used to sing to her, when she was a young child.

Briana looked up from her thinking, her black hair covering her eyes. "Huh? My grandfather taught it to me, I just sing it or humm it whenever I try to think my problems through. Didn't know it was Vulcan though." Her shoulders slumbed agaisnt the wall, while T'pol watched Briana undo her long hair.

"What are you doing major?" She asked, watching the black waves further escape and a pile of hair pins was going steadily.

"Well..considering that there's no entertainment, I'm bored. Would you believe me when I told you bobby pins work wonders for picking locks?" Briana's muffled voice came through her veil of hair.

"There are no live ciruts running through here, Major." T'pol pointed out, watching Briana yank a final pin out, and her hair fell, dubling the length of it.

Briana than pulled a scrunchie out of her pocket and started to pull her hair in a long pony tail. Once that was done, she started to walk along the walls, listening.

_((*))_

The Enterprise jumped from warp, three kilometers away from the green warbird. Trip looked at Malcolm, a question in his eyes, asking if this was the correct warbird. Malcolm nodded and started to get the torpedeos and phasers online, as another ship jumped from warp of their bow.

The unknown ship hailed the Enterprise. "What are you doing Pink-skin?" Shran's voice came over loud and clear.

Trip replied, his texan accent slippipng out on his words like syrup on a stack of pancakes. "Commander Shran, we're in a middle of a rescue operations. Commander T'pol and Major Sheppard were captured by ferengii, and then Romulans took them."

Shran's antenii pointed straight up, signalling that he was surprised. "Interseting. You don't have enough fire power to knock out the lights aboard that ship, Pink-skin! How do you think you're going to rescue your people?"

Malcolm spoke up, knowing he had the best knowedge for the job. "Commander, if we don't rescue our people, we may never get information regarding a dangerious species." He knew throwing that tasty bit of information would get Shran onto their side.

"If you're going to rescue your people, you're going to need help. The Kimtari will help you, Pink-skins." And with that, Shran cut the transmission, putting his vessel to a course next to the Romulans.

_((*))_

Briana sat on the ledge that was called a bed, listening to the current running through the walls.

"Just what I was looking for." She whispered getting down to work. T'pol hovered behind the woman, pointing out the most likely wires to short ciruit.

Briana worked quickly, moving silently as a owl in the dead of night. When the ship started to shudder and the deck platting lost inter-dampers.

Both Briana and T'pol were knocked off their feet. When Briana fell, she landed hard, putting all her weight on her right wrist, breaking it. Her head struck the ledge and opened a gash right below her hair line.

T'pol had a slittley better landing, she fell on her butt.

_((*))_

While the Kimtari started to draw the Romulan's attention, Malcolm hurried down to the transports to get a lock.

There, he found the two life-signs that were T'pol and Briana, locking onto them, Reed tried to materlize them on the Enterprise. Finally, the two were on Enterprise, and Malcolm gave a huge sigh of relief.

"Got them Commander." He pushed a button notifing Trip, then checking on them. When Reed turned Briana onto her back, he found that she was bleeding so he tried to stop that, while making sure they were all fine.

_((*))_

Briana awoke, an emourious pain in her right wrist. Opening her eyes, she found herself once again in the infirmary. Doctor Phlox, who she had gotten used to since that time she was startled by the sight of him, turned to check on her. He appeared to be going over two different scans of her blood chemistry.

"Good, you're awake. How are you feeling, Major?" He asked, a huge grin splitting his face.

"Like a Puddle Jumper landed on me."Sheppard tried to push her hair out of her face with her right arm, but found it immobil. "What happened, doc?" She asked, noticing a large brace on her arm, going from wrist to almost her elbow.

**A/N: And I'll try to get more romance in this, I've never done romance so pointers would be most welcome folks!**


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